Many business applications can be automated with voice processing technology. A business can use voice processing equipment to call its clients and deliver or solicit information. Alternatively, business customers can call into a firm's voice processing unit to obtain information, place orders, or transfer to human service agents or other response equipment. Other applications can employ voice processing equipment to exchange information with other call handling equipment without human intervention.
In most cases, the call originating or call transferring automated equipment must detect when the target called party has answered in an effective non-intrusive manner so as to effect a smooth and quick exchange of information from caller to called parties. This invention provides a process for communicating the call-answered event, commonly referred to as answer supervision, to call originating equipment by using existing tone signalling technology, Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF). The switching equipment or the called equipment will send inband DTMF tone(s) to the calling equipment unit when the called party has answered.
While other methods exist for detecting that a called party has answered, this approach permits existing voice processing technology to positively identify in-band call answering. The invention also extends the format of the answer indication to cover the selection of the form of information exchange the calling equipment will obtain from the called equipment when the latter offers connection services to various devices (FAX Modem, Voice Messaging, Data Modem, Phone and others).
This invention relates to improvements to inbound and outbound call handling for automated call processing equipment which enhances the speed and certainty of detecting call answer for equipment dependent on in-band signalling methods for determining the state of a call. The automation of call handing has exploded in recent years with the rise of customer services offered over the telephone by institutions and the replacement of human telephone operators with automated attendant machines. These systems have been used by business, government, education, and other segments to provide information to clients through the telephone. The equipment reduces the cost of providing services both by replacing human agents and minimizing the expense of each phone call by shortening the time each is handled.
The application of this call handling technology can be divided into two functional areas:
(1) call processing; and PA1 (2) inbound and outbound calls.
Inbound calls are placed by a client from a remote location to the service provider location (residence to business, business to business). The automated equipment answering the call on occasion must `transfer` the call to a human agent or alternate automated system. In some applications, the transfer process is not complete until the automated system knows the agent has answered.
Outbound calls are placed by a service provider to a client. For example, business to residence, business to target business phone. Typical applications for automated dialling include telemarketing and message notification. When the called party answers the phone, the dialling equipment must detect the call has been answered, and either deliver the message or rapidly transfer the call to another phone (human agent or automated system).
Early technology could not determine if the call was answered. An indirect method of detection relied on the calling or transferring apparatus to detect that ringing had stopped. No signal was sent by the called party or the switching system to the calling unit to indicate answer. Several seconds would pass before the calling apparatus determined that ringing had stopped. This delay meant the called party would hear silence upon answering, and then hang up.
In recent years, other methods of answer detection were created, but not without certain restrictions. One popular approach is voice detection, which allows the calling or transferring unit to detect the call has been answered by the presence of voice energy on the line. An advantage of this method is the ability to associate long, continuous voice energy with a home answering machine. The disadvantage is that the person answering the phone may not speak long or loud enough to be quickly detected as having answered. This technique would also be inferior to the alternatives disclosed in the subject invention when considering situations where the called party is another automated call processing apparatus.
Yet another form of answer supervision detection is a signal provided on an out-of-band channel; a communication channel outside of the communication channel carrying the information or voice between calling and called points. The fact that a phone device has answered is absolutely known to the switching system (central office, or pbx) to which it is attached, and this switch can signal the answered state to other switches over a communication network which is out-of-band. Currently, telephone network service providers send this information to automated equipment directly attached to the network over designated lines (trunks) supporting the reception of answer supervision using E & M signalling or ISDN D-Channel messages.
If the automated equipment doesn't support these channel connections, or is separated from them by switching systems not conveying the information, then out-of-band methods do not solve the problem. For example, voice response technology connected to analog phone ports on some PBX equipment, by far the most common form of attachment, do not receive this information from the PBX even when it has received it from the telephone network.